


The Common Bird Flu [F+Anthro]

by The_EXxtra



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Literature, fan fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-10-17 20:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17567603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_EXxtra/pseuds/The_EXxtra





	The Common Bird Flu [F+Anthro]

“Just for an hour.” A blue wonder said, holding out a few impressive bills in her wings.

“You sure ‘bout that?” The seagull man said, crackling at the timid request. “I’d be surprised if you caught one fish, no less!” 

Gripping the reel of her rental fishing rod, she handled the tool like some artifact from a far off country. A glimpse at the seasoned fisherman revealed a smirk. She giggled back at him.

“Come on. Just looking at ya just screams ‘hook, line and sinker’.” She joked, poking at the dirtied white seagull’s skills. She felt a fair wind hit the feathers on her head, reminding her of the pencil engrained in between the feathers on the sides of her eyes.

Zoe pulled the pencil from her head, smiling at the fact that she could be just as simple as the fisherman she’s biding her time with. Maybe a future journalist could learn a thing or two from a casual fisher.

She twirled the pencil around her one wing, throwing it in her pocket to get the utensil off her mind a bit. While doing so, she asked the sir “So...has this ancient relic done anything besides riding on his wooden boat, or am I looking at a forgotten fishing god?” Zoe snorted, cringing at her own question as she patiently waited for his quote, unquote ‘wisdom. Considering he was an old man and all.

Upon the seagull’s face, was a joyous smile peeking out from his beak. He pulled out a pen and notebook. “Step one of being a good fisher is...getting on the boat.” He jokingly wrote, offering a hand.

“An hour sounds perfect, if that’s what you want.” He laughed with a crackling, aging voice. 

Zoe nodded and took his hand, stepping on the boat and began going down the quaint river she was considering rowing by not a week ago.

It was a modest river, looping around to a large pond nearby the city. Many folk from all around loved going on the body of water, with it often getting crowded the most in the summertime. 

The older avian set his paddles to the side, pulling out his notebook for a moment.

The blue jay cocked her head to the side, parting her beak and squinting in confusion at the self-absorbed seagull fiddling with this pen and paper. She asked “Sir? W-why did we stop?” Zoe stuttered, flabbergasted at the need for this sudden break.

Looking up at the confused youngster, the old seagull put a group of feathers up in the shape of a finger, finishing up his note. He took his whole left wing and ripped a page clean off, handing it to the blue jay.

Placing it on the girl’s beak, he waited a moment and yelled a quick “Hey!”

The fellow blue jay jumped out of her seat, causing the note to fly off her dark grey beak. She flapped her wings around to catch it before it reached the water, nearly ending up in the water herself. She looked at the fisherman with a nervous giggle, going back to her seat and looking at the note itself to read it.

With her eyes tracking the writing, Zoe said out loud “Point of Interest. By Henry Travis...looks interesting.” Zoe nodded.

Taking the paper back from her, the white bird said “That’ll be me.” He smiled. “A writer...just like yourself.”

Zoe blushed, sheepishly pulling out her pencil from her pocket and holding it up against her chest, leaning down awkwardly. “Yep! That’s me.” She giggled before clearing her throat and putting it back. 

They both looked at the calm waters for a moment, the air feeling a bit uneasy. Henry then took one of his white wings and grabbed Zoe’s fishing rod and tossed it to her.

Patting her on the shoulder, he said “Let’s go fishing!” with great enthusiasm.

Emptying her mind a bit, she looked at the fishing rod and remembered what she came here for. Gripping the rod with both hands, the short bird sat up straight and tossed her line out into the gentle river.

Happily waiting to catch a bite, Henry glanced over to his bait. He saw only one of them gone and then looked to the blue jay to his side. He chuckled again, putting his rod down and handling her’s.

“Ma’am, I think...you forgot something.” The seagull mentioned, reeling the line back and placing a fiesty worm on the hook.

Craning her head sideways, a tongue stuck out on the side of her beak as Zoe stared at the worm. Her avian instincts distracting her from the task at hand.

Seeing a snap of some feathers shock her, Zoe shook her head and slung the reel back into the water.

The two then waited, for that’s all they could do. They both knew it was a mellow job, but only one of them could experience the why in this calm hobby. As the seasoned seagull kicked his legs up, resting the pole on his chest, he heard the woman beside her breathing a bit too heavy for the simple task of feeling a fishing line.

Scooting himself next to the tense, skittish blue jay, Henry secured his reel against the boat and gave his attention to Zoe, looking at her.

Taking a brief breath in, Henry hoped to ease the younger avian up. “Relax there, Zo’.” 

Zoe felt a gentle pat on her back, looking to her side to see the charismatic seagull. She brushed the smooth feathers on her head to the side and nodded. The bird then took a deep breath through the circular holes near the tip of her beak and exhaled with a wide open beak. 

Her chest felt a bit different, her throat a bit groggy and tainted with a bit of flem. The blue jay coughed a bit as she clears her pipeline out. Her sinuses even clogged a bit, but only enough to trigger an occasional sniffle.

That occasion came by quickly as Zoe sniffed sharply through her beak as she said “It’s fine. *sniffle*”

Henry frowned slightly, bringing his wing over to let the young girl honk her beak. “Go ahead! Sounds like you need it.” 

Having a white set of feathers blanket her black beak, Zoe couldn’t help but cross her eyes as if her face was under some very comfortable covers in a levitating bed. She then glanced at one sacrificing his fine wings and pushed the large one on top of her beak to the side.

The navy blue avian giggled softly as she said “That’s gonna make me sneeze!” She laughed, her voice singing a hyena’s song as she joked to the seagull.

She sniffled again, holding her fishing rod more loosely. Her pert wing swooped up to her pointy and curvaceous beak and cupped the tip of it, rubbing her beak on her own terms. She figured that if she helped herself with her supposed illness that she would know that she wasn’t trying to prank herself with some blue feathers.

Unfortunately, her feathers weren’t the smoothest of a bird. She was just as prone to having her feathers stick out as any other avian, and with that, just as likely to have her feathers end up in places she would hate to have them go. Feathers going in a beak isn’t common, since every anthro knows they can do quite a number on anyone’s nose, but a beak was especially rare.

Whilst brushing near the smooth, black tip of her blue jay beak, Zoe felt one of her thin sticks of sharp fur wind up grinding against the nasal insides of her upper beak and easing off of her wing. The lone feather then got shifted and twirled around, with the light mesh coating the delicate portion of her upper beak moistening and meshing the feather farther and farther down to the most ticklish parts of her beak, easily reaching the trunk of the think pecker.

Meanwhile, Henry felt both of them were having a calm time enjoying the feather and the gentle waves. He thought he did a good job cheering up the rookie, but something was a bit off. He put his fishing rod down and faced the blue jay yet again, quickly realizing the catch she just found on her journey down the modest body of water.

Zoe was losing focus and her vision was becoming faded. At this point, all of her motions were dramatic. Her eyes closed as if they just saw the blistering sun and opened like her talons got a dose of freezing cold water. Her sniffles were extremely harsh, but more importantly, she was snorting like a madman. It was like she was trying to shock herself awake while being half asleep.

Between and lower from the blue jay’s eyes were scrunching and crinkling up towards the wider end of her beak. Going down the actual beak, Zoe’s eyes could barely make out the tremors appearing along the mostly flawless surface of the dark pecker. Even further down, where all the mayhem was happening was the dreaded nostrils.

Zoe was overwhelmed, she had knew her beak could burn up this much. She had scarcely sneezed, her last one being early back in grade school and she never got sick. It might’ve been the air being a bit more chilly than she expected, but regardless, she thought she was about to die.

Pulling out a few tissues from his backpack, Henry held a fistful of tissues and offered them to the blue jay. “Do you need-” Henry asked, but the girl in front of her struck her beak to the grey sky, the trunk of her beak a scarlet red. 

“HUHhhhshiakkk!” Zoe sneezed and gagged, expelling some built-up mucus from her beak and throat. The blue bird felt the the soft leaf-like object jolt around to the center of her beak, continuing to give her quite the predicament.

Zoe stuck her hand out, feeling a soft tissue enter her wing. She placed a bundle of them over her long, slender nostrils and blew as hard and loud as she could. She was beyond embarrassment, but after a few honks from her skinny beak, she just saw a repulsive mess with no feather in sight. Every time she did give a good blow, the feather moved as if it was being blown by a hefty air conditioner, irritating and vaguely smushing the bits of highly sensitive cradled inside of her deceptively hardened beak.

With the tissues failing her, the sneezy blue jay then twirled two tissues into narrow piece of fabric and shoved it up one of her generously sized exhaust pipe that were on the screeching, sluggish beak. Her wing pushed and turned the contorted tissue up her static beak, thinking that the feather would stick to the white fiber and get pulled right out. With a yank from her beak, Zoe winced and rubbed the black pecker in pain and with a quick sniffle, frowned at her failure.

Her frown turned into a part and hitch from her beak, an eye opening way too wide to be within the realm of realism. An sudden earthquake took place in her beak, to where Zoe grasped her beak and squeezed it as best she could.

With a crying moan, Zoe shut her eyes tightly as she wisped away a fountain of tears with her beak under a sneezy rule. “Gehihh...duihjh...duhihh!! DOnt do ihhhh-ahhhchieeekkkk!” Zoe crackled from her beak, the sneeze not sharp enough to clear her beak like she hoped.

Henry shook his head, sneaking a business card in the woman’s bag and rowed back to land. “*What a shame. She as such a nice gal...oh well.*” He said quietly, moving on while he took the two of them back.

Still oblivious to what was happening within a few inches of her beak, Zoe clenched her wings and furrowed her brows. She had it up to the sky with this beak of hers. It took the liberty of sucking up one of her own feathers, it has refused to remove the tickle from itself and on top of all that, has embarrassed her numerous times and that’s without mentioning the darn cold it’s given her.

Taking her own ‘liberties’, she yanked some feathers from her chest and sucked them up both her nostrils. She thought that exciting her beak even more so would create a sneeze large enough to get all the feathers out.

With feathers up the nostrils, she took steady breaths as she let her sinuses do all the work. She couldn’t just sneeze a lot of tiny sneezes, it had to be a big one. So she sniffed and squeezed her beak repeatedly.

Just touching her beak revealed to the blue jay that her beak could fly off at any moment, wriggling in her grip. Zoe also dragged finger-like appendages along the length, and more particularly her long nostrils, to entice her beak further to build up a storm within it’s thin, nasal chambers.

Henry came to a stop, getting his seagull butt off the boat. He turned to see the desperate blue jay battle her nose and laughed to himself, letting her fight it on her own.

“Gehihh! Ithihh-its buihh-burning! EHIHHHHH!” Zoe hitched even louder, broadcasting her cry for help to the whole town. She sniffled, she snorted, she smelled the familiar scent of her own blue feathers. Her beak might as well have been a jack hammer, shaking the ticklish wings off of itself.

With an extra strong itch hit her frail sinuses, Zoe let go and sniffed the cold air hard and waited. Instantly, her beak shot up to sniff up some warmer air. Her eyes saw the thin rays of the sun, convincing her beak more of the need of a sneeze. Her nostrils steaming, feeling as though scalding water ran straight through them.

Waving more air past her nostrils, Zoe hitched her final cries. “Ghihhh-nihhhh...GEHHHHCHIEWHHHHH! Ghhihhsehskkkkk! REhihh-rahchkakkhhhhH! *sniffle* CHiewwhk! CHikkkk! Kahhhhshiekkkkk!” Her final sneezes rough and ruthless. The feathers absent from her beak.

Sniffling lightly, Zoe stood off of the boat and started walking home. She thought she felt some phantom feathers up her nostrils, but she sniffed again and hung her head down, knowing what was up with her. 

“Ejhihhshiewww!...crude.” Zoe said to herself. She wish it wasn’t true, but she had to face it. This blue jay had quite the cold.  



End file.
